Opus 76 Quartet with Paul Neubauer, viola
May 5, 2024 | Polsky Theatre
Past Event
Hailed as "Kansas City’s Premier String Quartet" (KC Independent), the Opus 76 Quartet and violist Paul Neubauer, SPA Trio and faculty at The Juilliard School, unite to perform Mozart’s C Major viola quintet & Brahms’ G Major Viola Quintet.
The quartet’s residency, which began as digital artists-in-residence in 2021, saw the group embark on a number of critically acclaimed recording projects in partnership with MTC as part of its innovative digital concert series, “Eat, Drink & Play!”
Adding to its previous recordings of “The Complete Works for String Quartet by Ludwig van Beethoven,” (broadcast live on Kansas Public Radio (KPR) in 2020), Opus 76 recorded Mendelssohn’s Op. 44 No. 1, Schubert’s Quintet in C, Brahms’s F minor Piano Quintet, Mozart’s Quintet No. 3 in C Major, Bartok’s Quartet No. 1 and Mozart’s The Six Quartets Dedicated to Haydn, a project also supported by KPR.
In addition to a national touring schedule, as part of its residency, the Quartet runs The Sunrise Programme, which provides a year of free lessons and performance opportunities to selected students in the Kansas City metro area.
Violist Paul Neubauer's exceptional musicality and effortless playing led the New York Times to call him “a master musician.” He recently made his Chicago Symphony subscription debut with conductor Riccardo Muti and his Mariinsky Orchestra debut with conductor Valery Gergiev.
He also gave the U.S. premiere of the newly discovered “Impromptu” for viola and piano by Shostakovich with pianist Wu Han. In addition, his recording of the Aaron Kernis Viola Concerto with the Royal Northern Sinfonia was released on Signum Records, and his recording of the complete viola and piano music by Ernest Bloch with pianist Margo Garrett was released on Delos.
Appointed principal violist of the New York Philharmonic at age 21, Neubauer has appeared as soloist with over 100 orchestras, including the New York, Los Angeles and Helsinki philharmonics; National, St. Louis, Detroit, Dallas, San Francisco and Bournemouth symphonies; and Santa Cecilia, English Chamber and Beethovenhalle orchestras.
He has premiered viola concertos by Bartók (revised version of the Viola Concerto), Friedman, Glière, Jacob, Kernis, Lazarof, Müller-Siemens, Ott, Penderecki, Picker, Suter and Tower and has been featured on CBS' “Sunday Morning,” “A Prairie Home Companion” and in Strad, Strings and People magazines.
A two-time Grammy nominee, Neubauer has recorded on numerous labels, including Decca, Deutsche Grammophon, RCA Red Seal and Sony Classical, and is a member of SPA, a trio with soprano Susanna Phillips and pianist Anne-Marie McDermott. He is the artistic director of the Mostly Music series in New Jersey and is on the faculty of The Juilliard School and Mannes College.